The Hindu Business Line : TRAI for sharing of active infrastructure too

New Delhi April 12 In a move that would bring down the cost of rolling out cellular service infrastructure, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has proposed to allow the operators to share active infrastructure including antenna, radio access network and backhaul microwave. Until now, they were allowed to share only passive infrastructure such as tower and power back-up.

TRAI has, however, not allowed sharing of spectrum, which would have enabled mobile virtual network operators to come into the market. A number of operators including Tata Teleservices and Spice Telecom had suggested that operators be allowed to share spectrum since there was a shortage.

The exponential growth in wireless telecom services calls for massive investment in infrastructure particularly passive, active and backhaul components.

The country would require about 3,30,000 towers by 2010 against the present number of about 1,00,000. Apart from huge investments needed, the time taken in roll-out could be a major bottleneck in the achievement of 500 million subscribers by 2010.

In its recommendation, the Authority has reiterated the urgency of sharing passive infrastructure though it has not made it mandatory.

In order to quicken the process for setting up infrastructure within a city, TRAI has recommended a joint working group under the Chairmanship of the District Magistrate to take spot decisions.

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